President Biden, 81, and former President Donald Trump, 78, were the oldest candidates to run for president, but in the grand scheme of things, they are outliers. A look back at the list of past presidents shows that the majority came into office very early in their political careers.
Data compiled by CBS shows that most US presidents were in their 50s on Inauguration Day. This is in line with Americans’ preferences: According to a 2023 Pew Research Center poll, about half of Americans said the best age for a US president would be someone in their 50s. Vice President Kamala Harris turned 60 in October.
The youngest person to be elected president in modern history was Barack Obama, who was inaugurated in 2009 at the age of 47. But he doesn’t hold the record looking back. In fact, there are four presidents who were younger than Obama when they began their White House duties.
Read on for the complete list of the youngest presidents in US history.
Who were the youngest presidents of the United States at the time of their inauguration and in office?
The youngest president in United States history is Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. He was thrust into the nation’s highest office in 1909 at the age of 42 after President William McKinley was assassinated while visiting a fair in Buffalo, New York.
Roosevelt quickly injected his youthful activism into this role, driving progressive policies at home and an active foreign policy agenda abroad. His famous advice on world politics, repeated in generations of textbooks, was: “Speak softly and carry a big stick…”
In this 1904 archive photo, Theodore Roosevelt campaigns for president. He took office five years later at the age of 42. /AP
The youngest presidents after Roosevelt were John Kennedy, who was 43 years old when he was inaugurated; Bill Clinton, who was 46 years old; and Ulysses S. Grant, who was also 46 years old.
Why are there so few young presidents?
Only nine US presidents, or nearly one in five, have been in their 40s, and none have been in their 30s. This distinguishes the United States from countries like Ecuador, Chile, and France, whose leaders are all elected in their 30s. One of the world’s youngest leaders is Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traoré, now 36, who has overseen the country of 22 million people since 2022.
In 1789, the Constitution set 35 as the minimum age for president, but times have changed, said Kostas Panagopoulos, a professor of political science at Northeastern University.
“This rule was adopted when life expectancy in America was about that (mid-30s) on average,” he said. “Clearly the founders expected presidents to be older and more likely to have experience as a result.”
As for why there are so few young candidates, Panagopoulos said it may have to do with how voters may view them. “Experience matters a lot in voting calculations, which may explain why so few presidents are young,” he added. “Voters avoid inexperienced candidates, and as the saying goes, experience comes with age.”
Conversely, if the candidates are on the older side, voters may wonder whether they are up to the challenge, taking into account their mental acuity and physical fitness.
Complete list of Presidents of the United States, from youngest to oldest at the end of the presidency John F. Kennedy, 46 James A. Garfield, 49 Theodore Roosevelt, 50 Grover Cleveland, 51 Franklin Pierce, 52 James Knox Polk, 53 Millard Fillmore, 53 John Tyler, 54 Ulysses S. Grant, 54 Bill Clinton. 54 Chester A. Arthur, 55 William Howard Taft, 55 Barack Obama, 55 Abraham Lincoln, 56 Calvin Coolidge, 56 Jimmy Carter, 56 Warren G. Harding, 57 Martin Van Buren, 58 Rutherford B. Hayes, 58 William McKinley, 58 Herbert Hoover, 58 Benjamin Harrison, 59 Grover C. Levland, 59 Andrew Johnson, 60 Lyndon Johnson, 60 John Quincy Adams, 61 Richard Nixon, 61 George W. Bush, 62 Franklin D. Roosevelt, 63 Gerald Ford, 63 Woodrow Wilson, 64 George Washington, 65 John Adams, 65 Thomas Jefferson, 65 James Madison, 65 Zachary Taylor, 65 James Monroe, 6 6 William Henry Harrison, 68 Harry S. Truman, 68 George H. W. Bush, 68 Andrew Jackson, 69 James Buchanan, 69 Dwight D. Eisenhower,70 Donald Trump,74 Ronald Reagan,77 Joe Biden, turns 82 on November 20, 2024. More Mary Cunningham
